During our shift to remote learning this spring, like everyone, I had to quickly adapt my course to make a range of content – schedule, videos, PDFs, Google Meet links, etc. – available to my students. While I was using Notebowl, I was looking for something with more flexibility in the way I organized and presented material. I know some colleagues created a simple Google Doc to house everything, but I wanted something a bit more polished.
Enter Google Sites. With a large array of apps available in the Denison Google Suite I used Google Sites to develop and publish a website for each of my courses. Since this was within the Denison structure, publishing these two sites turned out to be very straightforward. Also, with the many templates available from Google, I was able to choose and adapt a template that best met the learning needs of my students. I was pleased with different types of materials I could effortlessly upload and embed in to the site including documents, links, videos, a schedule, and more, all organized in a way that was understandable (and streamline!) for me and my students.
I am not extremely tech-savvy, but within a few hours, I had my initial sites published and ready for students to see. After setting up my initial structure by creating pages for each week of the semester, I was able to add materials and content as the semester progressed. My students found Google a stable platform that was readily available in their remote setting yet had to adjust to the additional digital interface beyond Notebowl. So if you are looking for a bit more creative control and a readily available resource for your students, consider using Google Sites to create your course webpage.
Here are the links to the two Google Sites that I made for my classes this past spring.
GERM 112 – https://sites.google.com/a/denison.edu/germ112porter/home
GERM 214 – https://sites.google.com/a/denison.edu/germ-214—remote-learning-mit-frau-porter/
Cynthia Porter
Visiting Instructor
Modern Languages/German